ROYAL OAK – From Iconoclast to Icon

ROYAL OAK – From Iconoclast to Icon

Upon release in 1972, the Royal Oak, designed by Gérald Genta for Audemars Piguet, created a stir. What surprised the most was its armour of hand-finished stainless steel, which protected the thinnest selfwinding mechanical movement of its era. For the first time, steel was ennobled to the same status as gold, making the Royal Oak the most expensive steel watch on the market. Inspired by the profound cultural, artistic and industrial changes of the 1960s and early 1970s, this iconoclast anticipated clients’ changing sensitivies and more active lifestyle, while heraalding the beginning of a new high-end watchmaking era combining sportiness and refinement.
An ‘outlier’ at birth, the Royal Oak soon found an audience amongst the free spirited youth, who recognised and celebrated the watch’s audacious blend of technological advances and ancestral craftsmanship. Within a few years it was reinterpreted in new sizes, materials and colours to dress the wrists of both women and men. The Royal Oak has been a canvas of design innovation ever since and conversed with fields as diverse as art, music, architecture and sports.
Its multiple iterations have in turn inspired the larger cultural world in unex-pected and unprecedented ways.
The Royal Oak is today a cultural artefact well beyond watchmaking, an object of permanence in a world of obsolescence. It bears withiin it the creative freedom and youthful spirit of the numerous talents who breathed life into it. This book explores its journey from iconoclast to icon in light of new research from Audemars Piguet’s Heritage Department as well as the fresh insights of those who have helped write its tory. Enjoy it!

Jasmine Audemars
Audemars Piguet Chairwoman of the Board of Directors

Francois-Henry Bennahmias
Audemars Piguet Chief Executive Officer

Text by Bill Prince

ENGLISH VERSION

ISBN: 9781649800596

2022 Audemars Piguet
LE BRASSUS

2022 ASSOULINE

Editor in chief: Esther Kremer
Art director: Camille Dubois-Masters
Senior Editor: Amy L. Slingerland
Photo editor: Andrea Ramirez Reyes

Printed in Italy by Grafiche Milani

291 pages

WITH 2 ORIGINAL BOXES